The Eastside View

O NCE IN A WHILE a cookbook appears that just can’t seem to go wrong. Judy Rodgers’s Zuni Caf&eacute Cookbook is one example: when it ...

T HE CULTURE IN PORTLAND, at least as far as I am concerned, is predominately a caf&eacute culture. Here I am under my black Italian ha...

T HERE’S NOT MUCH REASON to say much here about Mr. Bush’s State of the Union address, but I was struck by two features: its relentless opt...

T HIS PHOTO OF THE BINNENHOF in The Hague, taken last September, keeps pushing toward the front of the desk, I don’t know why. The Hague us...

A MONG MY FAILURES: keeping current with my reading of current material. So only now do I see the December 5 (2005) issue of The Nation , t...

T HE BAD NEWS IS, it’s in Palo Alto. Not very likely I’m going to drive two hundred miles for coffee, not even really good coffee. But the ...

T HEY SAY YOU GET to see one thousand moons. Well, that’s what I remember reading somewhere the Chinese say, or used to say; one thousand m...

A BSURD, OF COURSE , to have a favorite musical instrument, or even to prioritize among them. But the violin has a special place. Maybe it’s...

Healdsburg, a week later A ND SO WE’RE HOME again, after a final uitsmijter in an ordinary bar-cafe in the Marriott Hotel, and a trudge ba...

T HE RIVER’S UP again here on Eastside Road. The road itself is about five feet below that brown water stetching out across the road, the v...

T HIS IS THE COUNTER of The Cheese Course , the local cheese store, a block and a half off the plaza defining the center of the tourist des...

A QUICK NOTE ON BITTER HARVEST , which we heard performed by the Berkeley Symphony Saturday night. This is a new dramatic oratorio: a poeti...

left: our ridge, twilight B UT NOT WITHOUT FIRST seeing three more plays, eating one more fabulous meal, getting lost once or twice. All th...

left: LACMA at twilight Glendale, November 12— A LITTLE ODD to say of Shakespeare’s Othello that all’s well that ends well, but that’s how...

F OR SOME TIME NOW , since the middle of September in fact, I’ve been meaning to show you this photo. Seems to me it says all you need to sa...

A ND WHAT DO I THINK about the closing of our town movie theater, the Raven Film Center? It’s a very sad event, another step in the erosion...

N OT A DOG PERSON, no no no no, not in this country. We had a dog, of course, when I was a kid, sixty years ago and more; just about everyo...

H OW WAS THE MARK MORRIS, a friend e-mails, and another writes I wasn't as convinced about the performance as you were, but am very gl...

F OR A SUPPERCLUB CONCERT last night I'd been asked to provide about fifteen minutes of music. I put the assignment off too long, but a...

There seem to be various proposals afloat to help homeowners add solar panels to their roofs. Good idea, no doubt about it. But I have anoth...